US and Jordan air-drop more aid to Gaza

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Jordan carried out a new air drop of humanitarian aid to Gaza's Palestinians on Tuesday, parachuting in more than 36,800 meals, the U.S. military said.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza, which is supported by the United States, has displaced most of the enclave's 2.3 million people and led to critical shortages of food, water and medicine.

The situation is worst in the north of Gaza, which is beyond the reach of aid agencies or news cameras, and was the target of Tuesday's drop. Gaza health authorities say 15 children have died of malnutrition or dehydration at one hospital alone.

Aid supplies to the rest of Gaza, already sharply curtailed since the start of the war, have dwindled to barely a trickle over the past month. Whole swathes of the territory are completely cut off from food. The U.S. had made its first air drop on Saturday, over the coast of southwestern Gaza.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, U.S. President Joe Biden said: "The United States is committed to pulling out every stop to get more aid to those in Gaza who desperately need it. We won't stand by. We won't let up."

The United States has already urged Israel numerous times to do more to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's assault, launched after Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 people in October.

Israel says it is willing to allow in more aid through the two checkpoints on Gaza's southern edge that it has permitted to open, and blames U.N. and other aid agencies for failing to distribute it more widely.

The aid agencies say this has become impossible with a breakdown of law and order, and that it is up to Israel, whose troops have stormed Gaza's towns and patrol them, to provide access and security for food distribution.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Susan Heavey; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Kevin Liffey)